THE UNIVERSITY OF MINDANAO

Matina, Davao City

ABUSE AND LIIMITATION OF CODES

Topic

CE 545: CE Laws, Contracts, Specification & Ethics

Code 02687 – 4:30 - 5:30 pm

Reporter:
Aragon, Norie Angelic G.

Instructor:
Engr. Noroddin V. Melog

June 2019
ABUSE OF CODES
• When codes are not taken seriously within a profession, they amount to a kind of window
dressing that ultimately increases public cynicism about the profession.
• Worse, codes occasionally stifle dissent within the profession and are abused in other
ways.
• Probably the worst abuse of engineering codes is to restrict honest moral effort on the
part of individual engineers to preserve the profession’s public image and protect the
status quo (to maintain existing social structure and values).
• The best way to increase public trust of the engineering professions is by encouraging and
helping engineers to speak freely and responsibly about public safety and well-being.
• On rare occasions, abuses have discouraged moral conduct and caused serious harm to
those seeking to serve the public.

LIMITATION OF CODES
1. Codes are no substitute for individual responsibility in grappling with concrete dilemmas.
- Most codes are restricted to general wording and may contain substantial areas of
vagueness.

2. Uncertainties can arise when different entries in codes come into conflict with each other.
- Codes usually provide little guidance as to which entry should have priority in those
cases.
- For example, tensions arise between stated responsibilities to employers and to the
wider public.

3. Impression of relativity and variability

- Andrew Oldenquist (a philosopher) and Edward Slowter (an engineer and former
NSPE president)
- The existence of separate codes for different professional engineering societies can
give members the feeling that ethical conduct is more relative and variable than it
actually is.

4. Flaw by omission and commission

- Despite their authority in guiding professional conduct, codes are not always the
complete and final word.
- Codes can be flawed by both omission and commission.

 Some people believe that professional ethics is simply the set of conventions embraced
by members of a profession, as expressed in their code.
- This brings us to the issue of ethical relativism.